Backup

Perhaps one of the most unpleasnt tasks related to computing is backing up data.

I have fixed many computers. To my knowledge, almost nobody backs up their important information.

For most people, I assume, the most important data is photographs. I have dozens of CD filled with thousands of family photographs. Organizing and backing-up photos is not a glamorous chore.

I have two better backup solutions, one for my desktop computer and one for my laptop.

For my desktop, I bought a 500GB external hard drive. There are many free programs that can be used to help you back up your important data. I use a freeware program called SynchBack. I like it. It is simple, easy to use, and it lets me backup my data to an external hard drive.

For my laptop, I use Dropbox. Dropbox lets me keep a copy of my important documents online. Dropbox is great because, unlike most other online storage website, I do not need to visit the webite to upload files. Dropbox creates a folder on my computer. When I want something to be backed up, I drag it into the folder and it is automatically uploaded. If I disconnect from the internet, then my upload is automatically resumed when I reconnect. The only drawback to Dropbox is that there is a limit of 5GB of space for the free account.

I may have stumbled upon a solution.

Microsoft's Skydrive gives users 25GB of free storage. Thanks to the RSS feed on my Google Reader, I discover a new utility from LifeHacker. It is called Gladinet. It claims to offer a similar service to Dropbox, in that users can simply drag-and-drop files onto a local folder in order to upload them to various online storage sites. Gladinet can be connected to a Skydrive account.

The only drawback so far is that you have to download and install Microsoft's NET Framwork, which is annoying.

I'll give it a spin and let you know how I like it.

Edit: Gladinet is much more than a simple backup utility. It has many features such as sharing resources between computers over the internet and intranets. In the future, it promises to make it possible to do things such as work on a Word document online using an online word processing program. That is to say, use the internet like a computer without installing anything on your local computer.

One drawback of Skydrive is that it has a maximum file size of 50MB.